


a tribute clad in leather and gold

by bellafarallones



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 16:05:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18854410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellafarallones/pseuds/bellafarallones
Summary: Odin uses the Hunger Games as a yearly reminder of his power over the Nine Realms. Loki is a Jotun witch who can't imagine why the crown prince himself would compete. Thor throws a wrench into Loki's carefully-considered survival strategy, but Loki doesn't mind.





	a tribute clad in leather and gold

The eighteen tributes sat at a long table together, surrounded by flashing cameras. Loki tried to keep his eyes down. He didn’t want his brothers to see him dressed up for slaughter. Ulfrun was across from him, but he could hardly see her over a huge roast. Not that seeing her would have made him feel any better. She’d spent the whole journey here taunting him: she thought he’d be the first to die. 

The Asgardian prince was seated directly to his right. Thor. And even worse, he was trying to make conversation.

“So, Loki, have you ever been to Asgard before?”

“No.” Loki poked at the meat on his plate, and wondered if anything sketchy was leaching into his food from the emerald-green silverware.

“How do you like it?”

Loki shrugged. “It’s hot.”

“Yes, Jotunheim is very cold, isn’t it? I’ve only been once, but I found it very pleasant.”

Pleasant. Loki wouldn’t have used that word to describe ice and jagged rock and people who hated and feared everything that he was. Then again, this golden boy surely saw everything through rose-colored glasses. “Why are you so happy? Are you that confident that you’re going to win, just because you’re the king’s son?”

“No,” said Thor cheerfully. “Father tried to stop me from competing. But I plan to die bravely and join my ancestors in Valhalla to drink and feast for all eternity.”

Loki actually rolled his eyes at that one. Of course Thor was one of those religious freaks. 

“I saw you in training today,” continued Thor in a much lower voice. The man on Loki’s left, a Midgardian, seemed too miserable to be listening in anyway. “If you want to work with me….”

Loki shook his head. Being a loner had worked for him this far, and though he was destined to die, he didn’t have to go out listening to this jabbering.

The day of the Games arrived. Only a few of the tributes talked at breakfast, and even Thor sat in silence. Loki’s hands shook as he ate, but he wasn’t scared. He had a secret weapon, one one he really didn’t want to show the gamemakers or his competition.

All he had to do was escape the bloodbath at the cornucopia and get out of sight. Planning got him through the hours, imagining how a well-timed trick could mean the difference between life and death.

Soon Loki felt the bright sun of the arena warming his face. He bounced a little on his heels as he stood on his pedestal, waiting for the games to begin. Ulfrid made eye contact and then raised her middle finger. He didn’t acknowledge her. Thor was standing perfectly still, but the twitching muscles in his neck belied at least some anxiety.

The horn sounded. Loki took a flying leap off his pedestal, away from the cornucopia, and kept sprinting long after screams faded into the distance behind him. Thorny brush lacerated his arms and legs. Finally he stopped in a clearing to listen for footsteps and scrutinize the shadows for movement. Satisfied that he was alone, he flapped up into a nearby tree and disappeared between the leaves.

A Jotun runt, yes, but also a Jotun witch, and now a black-and-green songbird, almost invisible between the leaves. Nobody would find him here. If he was really lucky, the gamemakers wouldn’t have seen his transformation, and they would figure he had died quietly and out of camera-sight. Nobody would really care anyway.

Loki spent the next few days as a bird, fleeing at the first sign of activity nearby, eating berries and instincts. He watched the lists of the fallen: Ulfrun was still alive, as was Thor, as were the Midgardians, against all odds. His cuts healed and his feathers grew glossy. 

Eventually Loki’s boredom overcame his fear. Someone was coming, and he waited to see if anything interesting would happen. It was Thor. His blond hair had lost its luster and his clothes were dark with dried blood, but somehow he still looked regal. 

Thor settled under the tree where Loki was hiding and started sharpening his axe with a stone. That was certainly a cornucopia axe, delicate handle carved with flowers, broad shimmering blade. Loki couldn’t bring himself to fly away.

A rustling in the bushes, blue skin smeared with ash. Ulfrid. Thor looked up - he must see her, her coal-dark eyes - but he didn’t stand. “We don’t have to fight,” Thor said. “If you don’t attack me I won’t attack you.”

“There is nothing to do but fight,” said Ulfrid. Loki was shocked she didn’t choose to retreat: Thor was taller, and now he was on his feet holding that axe like he’d spent his whole life practicing with it. All she had were a couple of rusted daggers. 

They circled each other. Loki held his breath. Ulfrid lunged first, one dagger piercing the air between Thor’s arm and his chest, and he grabbed her wrist, fast as a dart, throwing her off-balance. Her other arm windmilled and the dagger met his axe-blade, metal scraping against metal.

Ulfrid’s biceps were shaking. Thor’s teeth were gritted. One of them was going to die.

Loki forgot himself, and dived. Thor yelped and stumbled back. It was only when Loki’s claws were tangled in Ulfrid’s lank hair that he remembered he’d forgotten to shapeshift, and then his feathers shimmered and he was a man again, riding Ulfrid’s shoulders, knocking her down into the dirt and holding her there. 

Thor’s axe fell into her ribcage. She stopped struggling, and Loki edged away from the corpse. He was breathing hard, cowering, bare neck exposed to Thor’s blade. He knew he should turn into a worm or a fly or some small vermin to escape, but Thor’s ice-blue eyes had him frozen. 

“You - Wait,” said Thor. He carefully scanned the trees, and heaved his axe into the heart of one of them. Sparks flew. A camera.

“How did you know that was there?” said Loki.

“There’s a microphone up in that tree there,” said Thor, putting a hand on Loki’s shoulder. “I don’t think I can get up there. Do you see it?”

Loki squinted for a tiny square of black plastic. “Yes.”

“Can you destroy it?”

Loki nodded and scrambled up into the tree. His fingernails dug into dirty bark as he pried the little box out and tore its wires.

“I think that’s all of them,” said Thor. “Now you can speak freely.”

“You can tell where the cameras are?”

“I grew up in the palace at Asgard. I’ve lived with cameras my whole life. Anyway. You. You’re a witch.”

“So it seems.”

“I knew,” said Thor, tearing his axe out of the camera in the tree trunk. “I knew when I first saw you that you were special. I want to team up. What else can you do? Can you shapeshift into anything you want?”

“Just about.”

“Why haven’t you won yet?”

“What good would it do me? To return to Jotunheim a victor with the whole district knowing my shame?”

“Your people do not look kindly on witches?”

Or someone who bargained with an Asgardian. “To put it lightly. But I can help you,” said Loki. 

Thor nodded. “I’d be grateful.” He seemed like a different person now than he’d been in training. In training he’d worn tight burnished leather and flexed for the cameras between sparring matches. In training he’d thrown his arms around the shoulders of the tributes from Alfheim and promised that he would make his father proud or die trying. Now the look in his eyes and the sharp grin on his face approached  _ intelligence.  _ “What if you turn into a dragon and we bust out of the arena together? We’ll see if my father will dare to shoot me out of the sky.”

Okay, never mind about the intelligence. “Are you all worked up because you just killed someone?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Probably.”

“If I’m going to work with you, I have some questions I want answered first.” This was a bluff. Loki already knew that Thor was interesting enough to be worth his time. And if he had to spend another day silently pecking for worms, he was going to go insane. “I heard you saying to Ulfrid that you didn’t want to fight. That doesn’t sound like something someone destined for Valhalla would say. Why?”

Thor ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, well. I say things for the camera. Hey, can you cut my hair? It keeps getting tangled.” Then he offered Loki his axe.

Loki took it gingerly. Thor knelt on the ground in front of him. Why was he doing this? How could he bare his neck so casually?

“What do they think of the Hunger Games out in Jotunheim?”

“Odin’s reminder that he can kill us at any time?” He pressed the blade of the axe to a handful of golden strands and watched them splinter, transfixed.

“That’s why I volunteered. He couldn’t stop me because he plays up this facade that it’s an honor to die. I want my death to show everyone how horrible this is.”

Loki pressed the blade closer to Thor’s skull. Hair fell like straw into the mud at his feet. “You Asgardians, you think you’re the center of the universe. You think you’ll be the martyr who tips the scale? What makes you so special?”

Thor covered Loki’s hand with his own on the handle of the axe. The sunlight filtering through the leaves painted his strong jaw pale green. “Hopefully, you.”

**Author's Note:**

> if u want more of this ill write more


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